Oprah the Latest to Join Fight on a Bill Stalled by Coburn
Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has become famous (infamous to some) for holding up bills that Senate leaders want to pass on a fast-track process, sent out a press release yesterday after Oprah Winfrey urged her viewers to call the Senate and press for passage on a child predator bill.
The bill is one of many that Coburn has delayed because he wants a chance to amend it or at least have some debate. But it’s also one, like the bill that would allot more money to investigate civil rights crimes from the 60s, that he has offered alternatives to.
In July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to pass a package of bills that were being held by Coburn. That effort failed. But, according to The Hill newspaper, Reid may try again before Congress adjourns for the fall campaigns.
Wall Street vs. Main Street
The latest Wall Street meltdown and the attendant rhetoric in Washington about whether people here care more about Wall Street or Main Street reminded me of one of the more memorable speakers at the Democratic National Convention last month.
The President’s Host
Shouldn’t have been too tough to get a beer at the home of John Cresap, who hosted the McCain fundraiser attended by President Bush today. Cresap is president of Premium Beers of Oklahoma, one of the 25 largest wholesalers of Anheuser-Busch products in the country. Which obviously makes him business kin of Sen. John McCain’s wife, Cindy, whose father and uncle started what is now the largest beer distributor in Arizona.
Beer buys big houses
as pictures of Cresap’s mansion in OKC prove. Mrs. McCain, you may have heard, has purchased a few houses herself.
Though he hosted the fundraiser today, which may qualify has an in-kind contribution to the McCain campaign, federal records don’t show any previous contributions from Cresap to McCain, or any other presidential candidate in the last five years.
Opensecrets.org shows that Cresap has donated $35,000 to federal campaign committees since 2003, with most of that money going to the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which has a political action committee that donates to candidates.
The candidates he gave money to are all Republicans. Cresap donated $1,000 to Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett for his unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2006 and $1,000 to former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys for his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004. He also donated $2,000 to former Congressman Ernest Istook in 2005, and he gave $1,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2003.
Your Government At Play
Trading a few road projects for some tickets to Disney on Ice? Just one of the many acts outlined in the indictment this week of lobbyist Kevin Ring. The recipient of the tickets, as we learned in June, was John Albaugh, chief of staff to former Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook (Representative 4 in the indictment and the Justice Department press release).
But reports from the Department of Interior’s Inspector General gave a whole new definition to cozy relationships. Seems some federal employees in the Denver office that oversees an oil and gas royalty program were very friendly with the oil and gas industry folks they worked with.
Capitol Hill Democrats have been a bit touchy about oil and gas royalties anyway since it was revealed that many leases in the Gulf of Mexico didn’t contain mechanisms for collecting royalty payments after oil and gas prices reached certain levels.
Abramoff Didn’t Get Off
In fact, Jack Abramoff, the former Republican lobbyist, got four years in prison in the corruption scandal that ensnared him and several public officials, including members of Congress and some aides. He was sentenced in federal court here Thursday, dressed, according to the Associated Press, in much more modest garb than this:
Among those who have pleaded guilty in the lobbying scandal that rocked Washington was John Albaugh, who was chief of staff to former Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook. Albaugh is cooperating with the ongoing investigation and is now due to be sentenced in April for his own misdeeds _ helping secure road projects for clients of Abramoff’s lobbying firm in exchange for a stream of gifts, including meals and concert tickets.
Before he was sentenced, Abramoff wrote a letter to the judge:
In it, he says: “So much of what happens in Washington stretches the envelope, skirts the spirit of the rules, and lives in the loopholes. But even by those standards, I blundered farther than even those excesses would allow.”
Sounds contrite.
But according to the Associated Press, Abramoff , who has been helping the Justice Department nail people who worked with him, has also been cooperating with another project _ a book that makes him out to be a victim of the Washington Post, which did a series of articles on his “work,” and Sen. John McCain, who was chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and investigated Abramoff’s dealings with Indian tribes.
However, at least two tribal leaders believe it was their tribes, and not Abramoff, that were victimized. The New York Times reported today that Bernie Sprague, of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe in Michigan, and David Sickey of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana told the judge that Abramoff had exploited their tribes.
Besides charging the tribes for lobbying and consulting work, Abramoff also directed them to donate to lawmakers and their political action committees (PACs). Istook, a Republican who represented the Oklahoma City area, formed a PAC that got thousands of dollars from Abramoff and tribes that were clients of his. Istook donated the Abramoff-tainted money to charity after the scandal broke.
Istook has said that he is not a target of the probe but that he has been questioned by the FBI.
